Trail Monster Running

Visit the official TRAIL MONSTER RUNNING website for information on upcoming group runs, local trails, trail races and more, including the Pineland Farms Trail Running Festival and the Bradbury Mountain trail Running Series.

Saturday, October 31, 2009

For somewhat selfish reasons I decided to have our Saturday run start only a half mile from my home this week. It wasn't entirely selfish because there are some great trails around here and I'm sure other people enjoy running them as much as I do. I realized though that it's tough leading a group run when no one else (apart from Jeff) knows the trails. We did have a pretty good sized group show up today including Emma, Jeff, Mindy (+ Pete on a bike), Tim, BJ, Erik (+ Django), Stephen, Erik, Rachel (+ dog), Don, Jim... I think that's it. Of course I think it helped that we started from Bernie's and planned to have breakfast after the run.

I had hoped to get in 10 miles today but I had never run the route I planned so I wasn't sure how it would work out. Turns out to be only just over 8, and I could have extended it but after almost an hour and a half we were all ready for breakfast. The route we ran started from Hannaford on the North side of the Presumpscot River, we ran down to the river, crossed over to the south side and ran downstream for about 2.5 miles, turned around and came back to the north side, then ran along the Piscataqua River, turned around and headed back to Hannaford.

Although it was overcast it was actually a great day for running, pleasantly warm for a fall morning, and it was great to be running along the river.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

I'm so glad to finally be tapering now. Not because I'm looking forward to doing less running, but it means that my big race is not that far away. Just over two weeks until Stone Cat!

I just counted, I've done 11 ultra-distance runs so far this year but I haven't raced a trail ultra. My only ultra race was the 50k last weekend and that was more of a training run, and it was on pavement. Yuck. It didn't turn out to be as much fun as I had hoped, mostly because I was in the middle of a bad cold and I ended up running most of the race alone. But I still think it was good training, particularly mentally, for Stone Cat. For the last 12.5 mile lap of the 50 miler I will probably be on my own.

My recovery from the 50k seems to be going well, although my cold is still lingering. It's hard to say if 4+ hours of running had an effect on my cold, it didn't make it any worse but it may have slowed the recovery a bit. Following the race my calves were pretty tight, my right femur felt a bit jammed up into my hip and my right foot was sore from the ankle down to the arch. Two days off from running and everything seemed pretty much back to normal thanks to a little stretching, icing and pulling on my leg.

On Wednesday evening I ran from work and did a lap of Back Cove. It was a beautiful evening, perfectly cool and comfortable shorts and t-shirt weather with a nice sunset. I could have happily run longer but knowing that I'm in taper/recover mode right now definitely didn't want to push it too much.

time: 29:14distance: 3.85 milespace: 7:36

Tonight I ran from home on a "new" loop, mostly roads but got in 2 miles of hilly trails up the back side of the Three Bitches and down the front. I had forgotten that a stretch of the power-line trail that I ran doesn't get much traffic and is very overgrown, it slowed me down for a bit and got my feet wet but it was kinda fun. Once I got going on better trail there were still plenty of wet and muddy spots to jump over or run through. I went up to my knee at one point, which caught me off guard.

The steep downhill of the Three Bitches was a bit treacherous, I was wearing my Brooks Cascadia which aren't very good on wet rock. I wished I'd worn my sticky-rubber Inov-8 295. Interesting to note that this 7.8 mile run had more elevation change than the entire 50k I ran last weekend.time: 1:04:03distance: 7.81 milespace: 8:12

Sunday, October 18, 2009

As my last long training run for the Stone Cat 50 miler I decided to run the MTC 50k in Brunswick this morning, another one of Erik's races. Even though it's a road race I thought it would be a good opportunity to get in some relatively fast-paced miles and not have to worry about carrying my own aid or making long stops to refuel on my own.

I had the somewhat foolish notion that I might be able to break 4 hours on this course, which under "normal" circumstances I might be able to pull off, but since I ran my ass off last week at the Mtn Epic race, and then followed that up with a nasty cold I wasn't really at the top of my game. I should have adjusted my race plan accordingly but didn't, and still set off with the intention of averaging a 7:44 pace for the whole run. At 18 miles my average pace was 7:45, pretty much on target, but things went downhill from there and the last 13 miles I averaged a 9:01 pace. Ouch!

The format of this race is a 4 mile loop that you run too many times (especially if you choose to run the 50 miler). To get to 31 miles everyone starts the race with a 1 mile out-and-back, 50k runners do 7x four mile laps, cross the finish line and then have to do a half mile out-and-back. I decided that this race was more about mental training than physical, since my physical race fell apart it was a real test of my mental ability to keep going when things became unpleasant and my goal was slipping away. And it didn't help that every 4 miles I crossed the finish line and ran past my car which provided an easy opportunity to drop out. By 22 miles I had already thought about the title for today's blog post: "My First DNF"

don't be fooled by those little lumps, this is a flat course

Here are my stats from the race, unfortunately my Garmin crapped out just after 25 miles so I guessed at my final lap splits, and I'm not sure exactly what my official finishing time was:

For the first half of the race (I was told) that I had a comfortable lead. No offense to the other runners taking part today but this race is very small, low-key and doesn't attract a lot of really fast runners. And I think most participants choose to run the 50 miler, or at least they set off with that intention. I have no idea how many people ran the 50k today, but at last year's race there were 18 finishers and the winning time was 4:23.

On my 4th lap, around mile 16, I started to slow down. Not significantly at first, but I was definitely starting to feel less good. My watch stopped displaying my mile splits and I couldn't read my total time, which was probably a good thing because it meant I didn't stress about how much I was slowing down. I hoped it was just a passing low spot, but despite consistently drinking and snacking during the run my energy was fading and all the hard road miles were beating the crap out of me. I did try to run as much of the race as possible on the dirt shoulder, and probably managed 1/4-1/3 of the race in the dirt but it was still my longest road run in well over a year.

At the end of lap 5 (22 miles) I was pretty much ready to drop out, but after taking a few minutes at the aid station talking to Erik - "Your races are killing me!" - I thought I'd do one more lap and call it a marathon. Of course when I finished the next lap I knew that I only had 5 more miles to go and figured I could continue on for a bit longer. That last lap was really not fun. My calves were tight and felt on the verge of cramping, my right hip was sore from the camber, my lungs felt like they weren't fully inflating. There's no way a 9:45 pace should have me feeling out of breath.

With about 1.5 miles to go I felt so bad that I decided to walk for a few minutes. Even though I was so close to the finish I just didn't see the point in pushing myself too hard on what was supposed to be a training run. Unfortunately someone else did see the point in pushing it and the woman who right behind me (2nd place in the race) took the opportunity to pass me. I totally lacked the motivation to put up a fight but I did start running again. I stayed about 50' behind her hoping that she was doing the 50 miler, but it didn't make sense. When we got to the 50k turnaround point with 1/2 mile to go back to the finish she turned and it was confirmed which race she was doing. I still lacked the motivation to put up a fight.

With about 1/4 mile to go Ed from GAC who was running the 50 miler passed going the opposite direction and shouted to me: "Don't let her do it to you Ian." This was just the motivation I needed to put on as much of a sprint finish as I could muster. I'm sure it wasn't impressive to look at, but it was just enough to regain the lead that I had held for the first 29.5 miles of the race. With a little guilt I finished about 3 seconds ahead of the first place woman.

While I was pretty excited to win the race I was pretty dissapointed at how much I slowed down over the last 13 miles. I was definitely still recovering from last weekend's race and the nasty cold I had... still have. All good training.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

First of all, congratulations to Erik for putting on a great race. I had a blast and I think most other runners did too. Erik was in charge of organizing three mountain races at Sunday River this past weekend, 1-peak 4 miles, 5-peaks 8 miles and 8-peaks 12 miles. I guess one race just isn't enough for him any more.

On Saturday afternoon after the Wife Carrying Championship Emma, Jim and I helped Erik finish off the course marking for Sunday's races. This was the first time Emma had seen some of these trails and even though she hadn't planned to race, wasn't feeling 100% (lingering knee trouble) and had vowed not to participate in a race until next summer she couldn't resist and signed up for the 4 mile, 1 peak race. I was doing the 8 peak race, Jim the 5 peak, and Shauna the 1 peak. There was a big contingent of other Trail Monsters who came up to compete in each of the races including James, Stephen, Bob, Tom, Jeanne, Chuck, Katy, George, Don, as well as many other familiar faces from the Bradbury Series.

I was feeling good about this race, after a summer of fairly disappointing race performances due to my lack of ability to cope with warmer humid weather I was really looking forward to racing in cooler temperatures. I've learned that 30-50 degrees is my optimum racing temperature range and that's just what we got on race day. I had also done a fair amount of mountain running/hiking this summer, and plenty of hilly trail and road runs that had me feeling confident about this race with about 3,800' elevation gain (and equal descent) over 12 miles.

My race strategy was to go out hard and keep pushing hard the whole way. Not too different than my usual approach to racing, except this time I actually thought I had a better chance of pulling it off without burning out near the end. Given my recent long training runs there certainly wasn't any reason to burn out in a 2-3 hour race. It also helped that I was just about the only person racing who knew the course. I set off fast and was surprised to find myself leading the way with Stephen for the first quarter mile. It wasn't long though before we hit the really steep climbing and the really strong mountain runners picked me off as we made our way up about 1500' in the first 2 miles. I knew that I had no right to be leading this race so I really didn't mind giving up those places early on, I just hoped that after we reached the top of the first peak I wouldn't lose any more.

Chuck was one of the runners who passed on the way up, and I knew that once we got to the long downhill stretch he'd pull away from me so I tried hard to keep close to him. Chuck credits years of downhill skiing for his amazing ability to run fast downhill, I guess when you stop being afraid of killing yourself going down a mountain it really allows for some fast running. Of course it helps having the strength to back it up.

From White Cap it there wasn't much up or down as we summited Locke and Barker peaks, but there was some nice rocky trail and single track. From Barker there was a good steady drop down to North Peak along dirt access road, a short stretch of Scottish looking hillside and then more fast running down dirt road to the base of Jordan Bowl.

Around mile 5 I caught up to Chuck and Stephen, who had gotten away from me on the downhill, now that we were starting our second long climb of the race. James also caught up to us, as well as Billy whom I had met at Bradbury this summer (or did we catch up to him?). The five of us stuck together, more or less, moving up the hill like an accordion, spreading out and then bunching up again. I don't think anyone was modifying their pace for the sake of staying together but as soon as someone fell back a bit there was always the motivation to push the pace enough to avoid getting left behind.

This second climb was easier than the first, covering only about 1000' in two miles to the summit of Spruce Peak, then an easy run on single track to Aurora Peak. We dropped down a little bit and then made a very steep climb up 400' more to the summit of Oz which is the highest point on the course, a little over 3,100'. As we approached the summit of Oz we were passed by another runner coming towards us who had already tagged the turnaround point on this short out-and-back stretch. I hadn't seen him since he passed me early on in the first climb but it looked like we were making up ground on him and I hoped we'd be able to catch him on the long downhill that was coming up. The course took a little dip down, then another very short climb to the final peak of the race Jordan Bowl. 4 more miles to go, 2100' all downhill.

The first 1.5 miles of this descent drop 1300' with an average grade of about 16%. I've decided this is just a little bit too steep to run comfortably for the amount of time it took. But races aren't about being comfortable, so I let gravity do it's thing and tried to keep my legs turning over as fast as I possibly could. Chuck and Stephen quickly pulled away from me and James passed me somewhere near the bottom of this crazy slope. I kept them in my sights and as the dirt road leveled out I began to close back in on them. It felt like I'd dislodged a kidney and perhaps a few other internal organs but my legs were holding up reasonably well to all the pounding.

Most of the last two miles of this race (all three of the races in fact) are on tight single track trails with plenty of tight turns and bumps and a few muddy patches. Based on all the running I've been doing at Bradbury this year I figured this kind of stuff ought to be my strength so I went to work catching back up to James, Stephen and Chuck. Many of the slower 4 mile runners were still on this stretch of trail (they had started an hour after us) which made for an additional challenge trying to get around them. I did end up passing James and Stephen but once we left the wooded single track for the final push on easier trail the order changed again, but we did stick pretty close together. Since none of the others knew exactly how close to the finish we were I instructed the other Trail Monsters to "put the hammer down" when I knew we were about 1/4 mile from the finish.

Of course this race wasn't going to end in an all out sprint, we had to negotiate the obstacle course of the Wife Carrying Championship before reaching the finish line and we all knew that we would be judged on our performance, not just our speed. I hit the log hurdle, planted my hands and did a sideways cartwheel, ran up to the edge of the mud pit and did a somersault flip into the waist deep water, dove over the sand pile and did a barrel roll landing and somehow managed to get back on my feet just in time to cross the finish line. What a brilliant way to end a race!

Jim after executing a perfect "laid out ass flop" into the mud pit

I ended up finishing in 2 hours 3 minutes, coming in 10th place overall. I actually think that this was my best race of the year. I ran hard, felt good, had good company, and turned out a time that I was really happy with. I couldn't ask for anything more.

Oh yeah, Emma finished first place female in the 4 mile race so that was pretty sweet too!

This was our fourth year competing in the wife carrying competition, we traveled up with Jim and Shauna who were competing for their second time (they took most of the photos below). Non-married types are allowed, and of the participants who are married I doubt many have been married as long as we have (10 years). I've noticed that there's something about marriage that makes many wives un-carry-able by their husbands after a few years (or husbands unable to carry their wives), so I've always thought that if they are going to call it the Wife Carrying Championship that participants should be married to each other.

Game face.

As soon as we arrived we heard the buzz going around that "The World's Fittest Man" was here competing this year. After checking in we went to check out the competition and not only did we find "The World's Fittest Man", we also found another team comprised of a guy who looked like he could beat the crap out of the "The World's Fittest Man" with a wife just about as tough. I decided that after last year's performance, and given the apparent level of competition, I'd be happy just to get through this race without dropping Emma.

I don't think out matching tops were going to do anything to help us win today.

Fezzik and Buttercup about to start their race.

We were up against a guy wearing antlers, who didn't look fast but he did look strong, and those are the types of guys that do well in this race. I decided that being a runner does virtually nothing to improve my chances at winning this race.

I ran the first 100 yards at a "comfortable" pace while moose-man sprinted out of the gate incredibly fast. I knew that there would be plenty of opportunity to make up ground once we hit the obstacles on the course.The first obstacle is a 36" high log hurdle. We had been practicing going over wooden barriers in a local parking lot so we had this technique down pretty good and made up a little time here. (that's not us in this photo)

Moose-man ran into the waist-deep water pit way too fast, did a belly flop and dropped his girlfriend. It was a classic tortoise and hare scene, I just kept a steady pace through the water and passed moose-man while he tried to get his wet and pissed-off girlfriend onto his back.

The final obstacle was a 4' high pile of sand, and we had also practiced traversing similar terrain so we were able to cruise over this without any trouble and "sprint" to the finish. I'm pretty sure this was our fastest time ever, one minute and five seconds. It was definitely our highest place finish, 8th out of 40 teams.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

For a few days last week I had contemplated running the Maine Marathon this weekend, but a few helpful Trail Monsters made me see the error in this way of thinking. I wanted to get another long run in this weekend and the marathon seemed like a convenient option but I realized that racing a road marathon wouldn't really help with my 50 mile trail race training as much as a long trail run. Since it had been a few weeks since I'd run at Bradbury I decided to make another attempt at the Ultra Xtreme Bradbury Badass by running all three courses of the Bradbury Mountain Trail Running Series races back to back.

Unlike the last time I did this run I didn't expect to have any company for the whole time and given the weather forecast for steady rain all day I wasn't sure who would show up at all. Mindy, Valerie and James decided to brave the weather, which wasn't bad at all when we arrived at the park at 8am and we headed out together soon after on the Scuffle course. It turned out that I hadn't picked up all the course markings from the Bruiser a few weeks ago so as we ran along we found a few flags and arrows along the way to pick up and carry with us. I realized that this picking up was slowing us down a bit so about halfway through the Scuffle James and I picked up the pace a little bit and pulled away from Valerie and Mindy. Running with hands full may have been to blame for slowing us down or it may have been something else (lack of motivation?) but we finished the 6 mile Scuffle course in 1:04, 2 minutes slower than when I had run this with Chuck and Jeremy back in June.

Not that it really mattered but I did hope to run these 27 miles today a little faster than before so after a quick drink stop James and I headed out on the Breaker course and I made a conscious effort to run up all the hills and really let loose on the downs. I wasn't sure if I could manage to run all the way up the summit trail, the hardest climb on the course but I set off with the intention of running as far as I could and would let myself walk if I had to. To my own surprise I managed to "run" the whole way, although at times I'm sure it wasn't any faster than a walking pace and I was just wasting energy.

I can't remember exactly when it started raining, but once it started it didn't stop and at times it was coming down pretty hard, but it was a pleasant temperature and it's always fun to splash though the mud.

Near the end of the first lap of the course, at the bottom of the Switchback Trail, someone has rerouted the trail and extended it slightly. Not that there was anything wrong with where the trail went before IMO, perfectly dry...

Anyway, the second lap of the breaker was much the same as the first, perhaps a little wetter. James was good company but he was running out of time and decided he would have to stop his run at the end of the Breaker. This of course introduced the idea in my head that I might also stop here, go home and get dried off and warmed up. This thought kept creeping back into my mind, like when we were running up the Summit Trail for the second time, but gracious downhills of the last few miles of this course helped to remind me how much fun it is to run at Bradbury and I was determined to finish this run whatever it took. We finished the Breaker in 1:30, 6 minutes faster than the last time.

I said goodbye to James and took a few minutes to refill the bladder in my hydration pack for the long 12 miles of the Bruiser. After standing in the rain I started to feel a bit chilled so I changed my soaking short sleeved shirt for a dry long sleeved shirt and set off alone into the woods.

It wasn't long before I started to feel the effects of pushing the pace on the hills of the Breaker and I started to care much less about beating my time from before and just focused on enjoying the beautiful colors of fall, and enjoying the mud. The miles ticked by and I was reminded of the Bruiser when Bob and Tom were right on my tail for the entire race. I worked hard not to let them pass and that feeling motivated me to keep going when I started feeling tired.

I found a few more orange flags out on the course that I missed from race day and picked them up as I went along. Kind of a pain in the ass, or more literally a pain in the abs. Like doing stomach crunches at the end of a long run. There was an arrow sign out there too, and the last thing I wanted to do was to carry extra crap in my last few miles but it had to be picked up and I felt bad that I had taken me so long to get back out there to do it. There was no way I was going to carry this stuff through the O-Trail so when I got to the entrance I ran ahead to the exit of the trail and dropped everything there, then back up to the entrance for the funnest part of the run.

The rain from today was really encouraging the trees to drop their leaves and the O-Trail was quickly becoming obscured. Even though I know this trail well it's a bitch to follow when it's covered in leaves and there were a few moments when I was convinced I had gone off trail and gotten back on going the wrong direction, but I kept passing familiar landmarks in the right sequence so I knew I was doing okay. Shortly after passing the red bracket fungus indicating 1 mile to go I had the notion of picking up the pace for the final mile, but was quickly reminded that the combination of tired-sloppy-feet and wet, leaf-covered trails leads to close encounters between face and ground. I tripped and I started to fall. I thought I could pull myself out of it, then thought I'd probably give myself a hernia trying so I just let myself flop down in the dirt. Luckily I landed in one of those rare spots on the O-Trail where there aren't any rocks or roots. Except for the one I tripped over. It was actually quite comfortable.

I got up and got back into that 11:30 O-Trail pace, no sprint for me, until I popped out onto the Knight Woods Trail. Of course I had to pick up that pile of flags and signs to carry with me for the final 1/4 mile so my sprint finish was probably lucky to have been under a 10 minute pace. Much to my surprise though I finished the Bruiser in 2:14, which was 5 minutes faster than the previous time. Despite a slow start I ended up completing this run with a new personal best of 4 hours and 48 minutes.

It's a good thing I don't have a training schedule because I'd never be able to follow it. My midweek runs didn't play out anything like I thought they might, but I still had a pretty good week.

TMR TNR

Jeff had the idea of doing 800 meter repeats, so after about 2.75 miles of our regular route we ran the "A Loop" fast and it turned out to be exactly 1/2 mile by our Garmin measurements so we decided to make this our repeat loop with an easy 2 minute recovery in the grassy fields between each rep. I was feeling good after my weekend without a long run so decided to wear my Vibram Five Fingers for this run. This was the first time I've tried speed work in Vibrams and luckily we were on a pretty easy trail so I didn't have to worry too much about stubbing a toe or stepping on a sharp rock. There was the additional challenge of quickly fading daylight, and during the last repeat it was pretty damn dark in the woods but it didn't effect my speed. The "A Loop" has some of the best hills at TB and if I had been wearing shoes with good grip as opposed to the Vibram slicks I may have been a little more efficient and perhaps quicker but since I pretty much never do speed work I wasn't really concerned.

1/2 mile repeats: 3:32, 3:35, 3:25, 3:19

time: 54:39distance: 6.41 milespace: 8:32

Wednesday

I was in Farmington for a meeting in the afternoon and Jeff had suggested I check out the trails at Titcomb Mountain. This sounded like a good idea at first but when I got out of my meeting at 6pm at got to the mountain I realised there was very little daylight left, I didn't have a headlamp and I really didn't want to get lost on unfamilar trails so I headed home without getting a run in for the day.

Thursday

My boss picked me up at 7:30 am to head back to Farmington which meant that after returning to our office in the afternoon I was without transportation to get home except for my own two feet. Luckily I had brought my running stuff with me so after work I ran a lap of Back Cove and then home. For quite a while I had been thinking that I needed to get in a midweek run over 10 miles but never managed to fit it in, but since I was able to combine the run with getting home I was fianlly able to make it work. Nice cool conditions, lovely evening for a run.

time: 1:20:12distance: 10.27 milespace: 7:48

Friday

Since I arranged to meet Emma after work in Portland I decided to run to work in the morning to avoid us each having a car in town. I packed a bag with my work clothes and lunch, and gave myself a little under an hour to get there. Interestingly, I guess, it turned out to be exactly 10k from door to door as measured by my Garmin. It was a nice morning for a run, but the route pretty much sucked because of all the traffic going into Portland and the busy intersections I had to get through. Not the most enjoyable run but it was convenient.

time: 48:11distance: 6.2 milespace: 7:47

I didn't really want to run both Thursday and Friday, Friday is usually one of my days off from running since I usually pack a lot of running in on the weekend. I don't like the idea of running 4 days in a row but that's how it was going to work out this week. I've always been a relatively low-mileage runner and even when I'm running 5 days a week, which it pretty much the most I'll ever do I never run more than 3 consecutive days. Oh well.